Primary Source

During the British siege of Boston, a Continental Army officer and former Boston bookseller named Henry Knox suggested that cannon might be used to drive the British from the town. George Washington sent Knox to Crown Point and the recently captured Fort Ticonderoga in northern New York to retrieve fifty-nine cannon and mortars and bring them to Boston.

Primary Source

This copy of Washington’s orders for the Battle of Trenton, with a map of Trenton drawn on the back, belonged to Henry Knox, chief artillery officer, and was written in his own hand. Also presented here is Knox’s firsthand account of the battle, in a letter written to his wife Lucy on December 28.